The Damsel

The lights shine in my face and I try to remember that this time I chose to be here. Fate of the world, and all that. I used to think that was just an expression. Opposite me is Richard Gupta, floating in a lounging position, which I know he is only doing to taunt me for my disability. “I can fly and you can’t.” Twat. He’s the head executive for the team that’s been hunting me since I became the golden wolf amongst the sheep. Mixed metaphor. It’ll make sense soon enough. The bright red walls warn of danger, while Gupta is floating proud because he’s finally cornered me. At least, that’s what I’ve let him think. I’m in this studio apartment come makeshift TV studio, for my own purpose. The red warning is for him. I’m gonna open a can of whoop ass and pour it all over his suit.

Dick has a tic and that is to touch his slimy head every time he starts speaking. Sometimes it’s slicking back his hair, sometimes it’s touching his fingers to his temples like he’s trying to bend a spoon with his thoughts. There are people who can do that. I don’t know why he does these things, but then I don’t really know why I do all the weird shit I do. It just feels right. At least I am aware when I touch my eye-glasses, but that’s 40% being nervous and 60% because I never could make the frames the right size and they slip down my nose. I wonder if he even knows about his tells.

He does it again as the professional crew, those who were willing to come out here anyway, quiet down around us, focusing on the task of getting a temporary studio ready for broadcast. Two guys adjust their cameras to get my clearest picture. There’s a lanky NB with those clunky headphones on too and they’re carrying a boom mic over our heads, which is a lot easier when you can fly. There’s some others floating around, who probably should have something better to do, but I don’t mind an audience. Not anymore.

A man of many coffees flies on with a clapper board and then gives the hand countdown.

Dick gestures to me like a TV host, which I guess he is.

“So, Sara, we’ve got a lot to cover today and I don’t know how much time until we lose the feed. Let’s ease people in and start with who you are and what your… role is. Your original role, I mean,” he says, smirking. He knows what is at stake, but still takes the jabs. We’ve had our ups and downs, and we agreed that this needs to be done, even if he doesn’t know the endgame - my endgame. He twitches like an 80s coke addict, waiting for my response. Well, I’m playing keepaway — keepaway the satisfaction.

I try to smile for the cameras, for the crew watching, for the audience which I hope is watching at home — if there are any homes left by now.

“You said it, I’m Sara. I’m the damsel.” I shift on my stool, the shoddy construction that it is, with splinters up my butt. How to worm my way forward to my goal? No, enough worming, sneaking and timidly stepping around all the bulls and the elephants. I am the bull now. The biggest fucking bull they’ve ever seen.

“And, for those who have been living under a mountain…” He turns and smirks at the camera over his shoulder. “What is ‘the damsel’?”

Another jab. And I realise we have to cover everything, still we don’t have quite that much time.

“Boy, you are starting it off easy aren’t you?”

“I want to make certain you understand,” he says with a grin like a guillotine.

“Well, if I remember from my mum’s history lessons - hi, Mum! - centuries ago, after a long period of violence and war, the tribes of ancient peoples were on the verge of settling a civilization that spanned the globe, but there was still fighting between the nations, and the factions within them. When people have the power to punch through mountains, countries and their politics get shook up pretty quickly, right? So the old ways of violence stood between the people and a brighter future. Amongst it all, a girl was born, the weakest, most pathetic, in all humanity.” Hey ho! I gesture with opening arms, almost losing balance on my stool. “With golden hair and —”

“And what did she do?” Gupta says, refusing to remark on my embellishment.

Is he afraid the audience is going to forget he is here if I hog the mic too long? I try to swallow the retort before it escapes. This is the best I’ve ever told this story and I’ve told it a lot. I’ll be damned if he’s going to ruin it.

“In the legend! She was so beautiful, fair and delicate, that news of her birth spread quickly around the world and the fighting stopped. Just like that. Everyone wanted to see the perfect girl for themselves, to see if something so divine could really exist.”

“Why do you think that is?”

I hadn’t considered. It’s just a fairy tale after all. I sweep my own golden locks, the mark of my curse, behind my ears but they won’t stay. They never stay.

“Curiosity… at first. I don’t really buy it.” I can’t help talking about the damsel and her finer qualities without using a mocking tone. “It’s said she was ‘a delicate beauty that couldn’t survive in such a harsh world’,” dramatic faint, “The people couldn’t bear to harm her. So they united under her. Not a queen. She had no ruling powers. More like a moral leader. And as time passed, she grew to be the cornerstone of society, a reminder that should the fighting ever start again, she would surely be lost, along with all the beauty of the world. She was a human sticky label, a note from the gods not to be mean. However, she aged faster than anyone else. By 50 years she had faded, by 70 she could barely walk, which was her thing, y’know, being flightless and all. Then she died aged 74, in what was considered the prime age of the time.

“The world was united in mourning. A great funeral was held. For a hundred days, barely a word was spoken. Now, that bit I certainly don’t believe. The greatest world event ever happens and nobody speaks? It’s the opposite of the principal social media is founded upon. Anyway, romanticism aside, when the period was over, the news came to the leaders of the world union that another flightless child had been born in the east Asias. The founding leader himself flew to see the child with his own eyes, and despite her dim wits, physical disabilities and horrid drooling problem, she was as beautiful as the girl before, with flowing blonde hair, the total opposite of local traits. Like magic. They were convinced it was somehow the same girl, like her spirit had passed on to the next life and returned. There was much rejoicing.”

I pause for a breath and to swallow some of the water on the stand by my chair. Usually this kind of public talking makes me nervous. My whole body is buzzing in a different way now. Christmas is coming.

“So, it was peaceful again?” Dick chimes in.

“Yes, but the child grew to be so beautiful that many would fight over her, proclaiming themselves best to safeguard her. She was often captured by rivals to be a prisoner in their court, or their concubine - blergh! Brief skirmishes occurred, but all the people of the world remembered the feelings they had when they first saw the girl: happiness, contentment and peace. Peace always returned as long as the girl was safe. So the tradition of heroic warriors began with the sole purpose of protecting her. Some said that she wasn’t powerless, that this was her special ability, drawing powerful people to her. Villains were drawn to her, but so were the heroes, to save her. She became known as the damsel, and since then her spirit has passed from one girl to another, so there is always someone to unite the world and maintain the fragile peace.”

“Peace…” he snorts, and I want to punch him in his slimy face. “And now the damsel is you, Sara.”

I sit up straight. Solemn. Gotta punch on through to the good stuff. Pardon the pun.

“They got the pretty part right, but do we have peace?”

I try not to retch, at both parts. Everyone is quiet, and for a moment the pressure gets to me. I can’t help noticing all the faces, watching me with stiff brows, heavy with anger. No, resentment.

“We did. Last Tuesday, briefly over lunch… but that’s not entirely my fault…” I start, but he’s leaping in faster than an old man at a skinny dipping retreat.

“Riots, vigilantes, people being crippled by a mysterious…well, we don’t know what, but they’re saying that an end is coming. They’re fearing the worst. This is the most terrible disaster in centuries, maybe since the damsel line began, and it all started when you neglected your duty.”

“Duty? Is it duty just to exist and look pretty? There’s so much I’ve not been able to do!” I cut myself off. Swallow the hot breath. Ranting won’t help things.

“The rebel damsel! Hero or villain of her own story? You decide,” he says to the cameras.

That’s enough. Now he’s just showboating for his own ratings, and in the middle of a damn revolution. If people saw the ad there is no way they would miss this show. The guy writing the synopsis must have had a field day.

“Hey, you’re not a reporter any more, Dick.” I make sure to emphasise his name, and smile at some of the giggles from the staff. “Let’s keep it on the goal here.”

I can see the anger flaring up behind his eyes. He doesn’t like being talked down to by someone a fraction of his age. It’s not my fault I mature quicker than most. He can’t have been a day over 120. Punk.

“We’ll get to that in a minute. We’re going to start at the beginning so everyone fully understands what is going to happen here tonight.” He stands up and waves his arms to gather more attention out of the air like magic. He pauses, confident that all eyes in the city, possibly the world, are focussing on him in this historic moment. “You’re going to tell us how it all went wrong, how you defied your vital role as the damsel and turned your back on society.

“So why don’t we talk about the first day, when you came out to the world after years of evasion. Why did your parents keep you in seclusion all those years, banning the studio’s interaction with you, allowing you to learn about your prestigious role, but not complete your duty? Was it your choice or theirs? You must have had questions growing up. What happened on that first day, Sara?”

I couldn’t scowl any harder. One at a time, dude.

“You mean when you burst into my life and plastered an unwilling teenage girl all over the media for money?”

“Properly,” he says, unphased. And I imagine one of those beat ‘em up game vs screens with our profiles glaring at each other.

Oh come on, Dick. I’m just having fun.

Sure, from the beginning, I hadn’t been the damsel the world wanted, but that wasn’t entirely my fault. My parents chose to raise me in secret, to protect me from a world they saw as too dangerous for their underpowered child. It didn’t help that I’d often go on independent excursions and get into scrapes that I couldn’t get out of without help. We’ll get to that later. However, starting public high school was the catalyst. So, of course, we’re going to start there.